Bike easily gets out of control..

Hi, I ride my silverwing 600 abs in istanbul, turkey, where the roads (even highways and freeways) are full of cracks / tar snakes / bad asphalt, and even when travelling at around 50 mph my front wheel gets caught in those cracks and the bike starts travelling in the direction of the crack,almost as if on a mini railroad

I lost control on one very rainy day, the back of the bike started shaking uncontrollably and I fell off onto the wet asphalt, luckily I was doing around 40 mph and did not have anything broken etc. I later got the bike repaired, and it's been 15 months since my accident but I'm still very afraid to fall again and the bike still gets caught in those cracks.. I've done over 10.000 miles on scooters during the last 4 years and my experience hasn't changed.. Do you think it's my tires? (around 3000 miles since I changed both tires with michelins) could it be my suspension? how can I check? how can I avoid this problem and ride safer without the fear of getting caught in an asphalt crack? Many thanks for all your advice.

many thanks.

Sorry to hear about your fall. Glad you came away unhurt.

I can't say that I have gotten stuck in a rut the way you have, but I have had the front tire briefly follow grooves or ruts in the pavement before. It is unnerving.

I replaced the fork springs with HyperPro springs earlier this year. The bike feels like it goes where I want it to go more than it did with the factory springs. It does not follow ruts as much. Perhaps it could help you.

Have you considered the Piaggio MP3 scooter? It has two front wheels that lean. Supposedly it is unfazed by poor road conditions.

It is highly unlikely that governments will repair the roads so you will have to adapt to the cracks. By that I mean, ride slower to visually ID them and take avoiding action early.

Not on the same scale, where I live I have to negociate railway tracks, they actuall run down the road. These man made cracks are lethal in the rain and many experienced riders have come unstuck courtesy of these railway lines.

In your situation with so many of these cracks to avoid, my first action would be to slow down and avoid them, then start looking at perhaps stiffening suspension or even as suggested think about the 3 wheeled scoots. MP3's/Fugly and the like.

Not a good situation, don't envy you.

Thanks, I'd like to try the hyperpro springs; is there a link you could give me to purchase them? do regular motorbikes with larger wheels have the same problem or are they more stable?

Cross cracks or grooves at an angle. if you are getting a high speed wobble, you may be tense and fighting the handle bars. Relax and you will minimize this. Watching Isle of Mann (?) footage, I was amazed at how many bikes appeared to experience high speed wobbles!!

I would replace the tires from Bias to Radial tires and keep the air up to the right PSI . Metzeler makes Radial tires that fit Silverwings. I had a motor bike years ago that I changed from Bias ply tires and put Radial tires on it and that helped stop the shifting on the un even roads .

My Brother in Law, an old time Goldwing rider, told me to always make sure my tire pressure is correct. Also, riding class said always cross RR tracks and other linear cracks at 45-90 degree angle.

I notice that even on good roads if they did a repair and I ride along the repair line that is not absolutely smooth my bike wobbles. One part of riding a bike is watching the road surface in front and avoiding the pot holes.

One thing that is being overlooked here, because its not an exact science,
is putting automobile tires on the scooter.

Alot is written on this board and others about this, also called "dark side" or "dark siding". You'll have to do a search.

It seems to me that using automobile tires, which will have a wider amount of rubber on the road at all times (and maybe wider than the cracks you get caught in) will give you more control than the round (and therefore narrower) contour of a standard bike/motorcycle tire.

I wouldn't consider it in conventional situations, but unusual problems demand creative solutions.

Dan

many thanks for all the advice, I'll definitely try the radial tires and the hyperpro springs.. if you could provide me a link for the hyperpros that'd be great. thanks

http://www.wilbersusa.com/hyperpro-springs.htm

These guys import into the USA from Europe. If you google HyperPro, you would probably be able to find a dealer in Europe.

Link for the UK site;

http://www.hyperpro.com/index.asp?lang=english

Part of the problem is the scooter's smaller wheels, larger wheels handle rough roads better. My Goldwing rides easily over stuff that bounces my Silverwing around. A lot of that is larger diameter tires. A second consideration is wider tread, grooves that might bother a bicycle don't cause a problem with a motorcycle with a wider tire tread. Different brand tires can help, I had an '86 Goldwing that was hard to handle on bridge decks and always tried to follow tar snakes on the road. Getting rid of the Dunlop E2s and going to E3s made a great difference, lots more stable with the E3s. Since the only easily controlled variables on the SW are tire brand and psi I'd suggest a different brand of tire and experimenting with inflation pressure. I doubt that different springs will help much, aftermarket fork springs tend to be stiffer than OEM which does help in agressive riding in curvey roads but not so much on rough ones.

When I switched the rear tire to a (wider) Darkside tire, it provided great stability for a lot of situations.

The original OEM Bridgeston Hoops front tire would still lightly track groves.

When I switched my front tire to a (wider) rear tire which did not have a grove down the middle, I found that the front tire stopped tracking the groves and I could freely steer over groves if I wanted.

I read somewhere that tires with front tires with a straight (or slightly zizaged) down the middle tended to track groves more ... which I am tending to believe.

Thanks for chiming in with your experience, Bill.
I've never darksided, so though I thought it would work I couldn't say for sure.

Dan